ABSTRACT
Most, though certainly not all, of the work I have so far described stems from research from the 1960s or later. There is of course, a good deal of work from the earlier years of the century, but it appears to have been less coherent and cumulative than what followed. I believe the cumulation stems from the overwhelming impact on the psychological study of memory of what has become known as the cognitive revolution , which in turn refl ected the infl uence of the development of the computer on our ways of conceptualising human memory. Over the last 40 years of course the computer itself has developed enormously, providing new and more biologically plausible representations of the way in which the brain might store and access memories. Our experimental methods have become more sophisticated and robust, allowing the study of memory to move beyond the laboratory to the outside world, and into the neuropsychological clinic, hence providing further data for expanding and modifying our theories. But what of the future? Has the study of memory reached a plateau, or is it continuing to develop, and if so, in what way? Prediction is a hazardous business at the best of times, but what I can do is to comment on those areas that seem to me to be particularly active at present, and likely to lead to new developments.
